The Music Thread! What Are You Listening To? #4

Elvis used to say that he wished he had Roy Orbison’s voice.

Orbison’s “In Dreams” is a difficult song because of its range. Roy had to resort to falsetto to hit the higher notes. (He resorted to falsetto on a number of his other songs too.)

Tom Jones does “In Dreams” with no problem at all, no falsetto. You could say that Jones has the better voice.

But I like Roy’s version better, which indicates that appreciation of a singing voice is like so many other facets in art: subjective.


 
The Mexicans from interior Mexico, with whom I worked in the cotton fields back in the 1950s, used to sing this song all the time. One of then named Angel had a beautiful voice and carried the hard parts. The rest of us just chimed in. This version of Cucurrucucu Paloma by Lila Downs is much better than we were.

 
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